Reading' the Tracking Shot in Nadja and Marienbad
Location
King Building 321
Document Type
Presentation
Start Date
4-28-2017 3:00 PM
End Date
4-28-2017 4:20 PM
Abstract
My research compares the seminal French works, André Breton’s novel, Nadja (1928), and Alain Resnais’s film, L’année dernière à Marienbad (1961). Both works feature first-person limited, male narrators whose memories return to a specific location: a time and place (Paris, 1926 and Marienbad, the year before) where the main concern is a sexual relationship with a desired woman. My essay imagines these narratives as progressions through a ‘memory-scape,’ where the narrators, Breton and X, enter into their memories as an interrogative state of self-introspection, but also self-defensive assertion, as to the nature of their relationships to Nadja and A, respectively. The memory-scape serves as the specific location of the men’s memories, and it is where a considerable amount of the plot takes place. In Nadja, Breton’s memory-scape is Parisian streets, where he promenades and ruminates on life with Nadja. In Marienbad, X sequesters A the gardens and his fantasies abound. Considering the fields of narrative inquiry in Nadja and film philosophy in Marienbad, I conceptualize the cinematic technique of the tracking shot as a framework in which to visualize Breton and X within their memory-scapes. In conversation with film scholar Hunter Vaughan, my analysis posits a nuanced view of the shared ontology of Nadja and Marienbad and comments on the psychological boundaries of the first-person limited narrators and the technical boundaries of the distinct mediums.
Keywords:
surreal romance, film aesthetics, memory
Recommended Citation
Van Buren, Eleanor H., "Reading' the Tracking Shot in Nadja and Marienbad" (04/28/17). Senior Symposium. 73.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/seniorsymp/2017/presentations/73
Major
Comparative Literature; English
Advisor(s)
Jed Deppman, Comparative Literature
Project Mentor(s)
Jed Deppman, Comparative Literature
April 2017
Reading' the Tracking Shot in Nadja and Marienbad
King Building 321
My research compares the seminal French works, André Breton’s novel, Nadja (1928), and Alain Resnais’s film, L’année dernière à Marienbad (1961). Both works feature first-person limited, male narrators whose memories return to a specific location: a time and place (Paris, 1926 and Marienbad, the year before) where the main concern is a sexual relationship with a desired woman. My essay imagines these narratives as progressions through a ‘memory-scape,’ where the narrators, Breton and X, enter into their memories as an interrogative state of self-introspection, but also self-defensive assertion, as to the nature of their relationships to Nadja and A, respectively. The memory-scape serves as the specific location of the men’s memories, and it is where a considerable amount of the plot takes place. In Nadja, Breton’s memory-scape is Parisian streets, where he promenades and ruminates on life with Nadja. In Marienbad, X sequesters A the gardens and his fantasies abound. Considering the fields of narrative inquiry in Nadja and film philosophy in Marienbad, I conceptualize the cinematic technique of the tracking shot as a framework in which to visualize Breton and X within their memory-scapes. In conversation with film scholar Hunter Vaughan, my analysis posits a nuanced view of the shared ontology of Nadja and Marienbad and comments on the psychological boundaries of the first-person limited narrators and the technical boundaries of the distinct mediums.
Notes
Session II, Panel 8 - Literary | Comparisons
Moderator: Jed Deppman, Professor of Comparative Literature and English